He looked at her, steady. “I’m surprised you didn’t get pulled over.”

“I’m not…I didn’t—”

He waved his hand, as if her words were pesky mosquitoes. “Something is mildly amiss here; some information is being withheld. Rita noticed it too. It’s funny, but secrets have a way of floating in the air. You can often just see them, somehow. But whatever it is, it doesn’t seem nefarious. It seems a gentle secret; that’s how Rita put it. I do like to wonder, though. My brain can’t help but come up with various scenarios. For example, I was just reading about some serious and well-thought-out damage to some oil rigs near Chalk Canyon a few weeks ago, and whoever did it hasn’t been caught, despite a big search, given the significant financial loss. That’s sacred land. Sacred. Too wild to drill, some say. I happen to agree. You ever been?”

“Nope.”

He blinked at her. “Yup, something is amiss here and I’m not going to ask. But I’m going to tell you that I’d hate to have you get lost out here on these back roads. Your car doesn’t have long. Some adventures aren’t worth having. Don’t get stuck.”

She put her hand to her necklace and turned to go before he could see the flush of her cheeks. She’d known it was time to fly south, and now she had the push she needed. Although, true, it wouldn’t be the Grey Goose taking her.

—

Rita had a surprise in the bed of the truck: two pairs of old cross-country skis and boots. “This much snow is rare, so carpe diem, we’re going,” Rita said. “Come on. I need a friend to join me.”

So she and Rita started out, cutting tracks side by side through the sparkling white, Lady bounding alongside, stopping occasionally to push her nose into the snow. Ammalie’s ski boots were a bit big and stiff with age, and immediately gave her a cramp in her right arch, but she was too happy to care—it wasn’t going to kill her, after all, and that was her new baseline. The snow was perfect. Though she was no expert, she knew there was sticky snow and gluey snow and too-hard snow, and there was perfect snow, when it was warm enough outside to not be freezing, but cold enough for a glide. The swish-swish of the skis metronomed with her heart.

Rita was a better skier and charged ahead. Aha, so this is what it was like to have someone go faster than you through life! Ammalie realized she liked it; it was as if someone else was fueling the energy, keeping the momentum, and maybe that’s what had dragged her down before, not just the literal going faster but the emotional weight of feeling like the one cutting a trail through the logistics of getting household things done, Powell to school on time, the groceries bought.

She felt a sudden rise of bitterness toward Vincent; yes, he’d had more energy for adventures and hobbies, but that’s because she was the one making regular life happen! Yet she also wondered why she and Vincent hadn’t skied more; they both had skis and knew how. They could have gone some mornings, on the days he worked from home, or on weekends, before she left for the lunchtime crowd. But enough. No more regret about what they could have done. She was doing it now.

Rita waited for her to catch up, and then they skied side by side again, each cutting their own tracks in the snow. “Thank you for your help during the storm,” Rita said. “Perspicacity. Wasn’t that your word of the day a few days ago?”

Ammalie nodded.

“Well, thank you for your diligence and perspicacity during the storm.” Rita turned to her and flashed a coral-lipsticked smile, which seemed particularly bright against the backdrop of a landscape of white. Then, out of nowhere, she added, “I had a son and he died. In Iraq. I’ll never feel fully human again.”

“Oh!” Ammalie startled, both from the information and by a thump of snow falling from a tree to the ground. “Rita, I’m so sorry. That’s unbearable. I can’t—I can’t imagine.”

“Then my husband died. I just thought I should tell you. Rex and I bought this place soon after, and we’ve enjoyed it here.” They skied in silence for a few glides, and then she added, “My point in telling you this is that there is no one. No real kin. Rex feels better when he’s warm. He left a little house he had in Puerto Vallarta, in a retirement village he loved, with paved sidewalks that are oddly better for wheelchairs than most of America’s. He agreed to come help me with this place for a year or two. And now he has. He wants to go back. He has MS—did he tell you that?—and he wants to die there. He wants to take Lady too. I should have known he’d fall in love. But it’s up to you, of course. My plan is to sell this place next year. To the right person. You could always stay, you know. I’d recommend the next person hire you. And I hope you stay and work for me as long as you want. We can discuss a salary and all that.”

Ammalie looked over at Rita briefly, then back ahead as they skied. “That’s really kind. Thank you sincerely, Rita. The storm gave me a lot of time to think. I…have a bit more traveling I need to do, and I best do it soon. There’s one more adventure required of me. But I wouldn’t mind circling back here someday.”

“Perspicacity,” Rita mumbled thoughtfully, her breath misting out.

Ammalie smiled at Lady, who was darting through the snow, jabbing her nose into it randomly, and then racing back to them before repeating the whole process again. The plings and drips of snowmelt and birdcalls in the white expanse seemed like a certain version of heaven, something cleansed and pure. “Rita, I brought my dying husband a glass of water—water. What he needed was an ambulance.” Her voice sounded dazed even to her when she added, “I haven’t confessed this to anyone. Truly, this is the first time I’ve said it aloud. I haven’t even told my son, although he was there, upstairs, and he knew the ambulance got there too late. I just moved too slow, because I was surprised, and I hadn’t thought it through. Water.”

Rita continued to glide along beside her. They had worked out the rhythm and pacing so that they could stay side by side in the meadow. “It sounds solicitous, if not effective. And understandable! After all, that’s what humans do. In particular, that’s what waitresses do. They bring you water. Right? Sometimes they bring you so much water that it’s annoying.” She reached out and touched Ammalie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke. I’m so very sorry that he died.”

“Even if the doctors say it wouldn’t have saved him, and are right, there is still something about how slowly I reacted that haunts me. I’m afraid Vincent died knowing that I was being impatient, and that I wanted the water to fix his problem, more or less. So now I try to think through things more. Like in the snowstorm.”

Rita started to speak, stopped, started again. “Well, you did great. I’m also sorry for you, Ammalie. I’m sorry about Vincent, but I’m also sorry…” And here she paused and looked down at her salmon-colored scarf, as if about to say something that edged on improper. “I’m sad you’re so alone. I wish someone would bring you a glass of water. Metaphorically speaking. You seem so very…on your own. Although perhaps that’s by choice? And you have people?” Then she looked up with a renewed energy, perhaps trying for happy. “It’s just that you don’t talk about your life much. What I do know is that you’ve helped us greatly these last days. We’d like to give you a thousand bucks, in addition to the room. That’s my version of bringing you water.”

“Thanks for that.” Ammalie swished her skis through the snow. “But I don’t need that.”

Rita burst into a birdlike cascade of laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous. Yes you do. A car repair. A trip. Or the water heater will go out in your home. Or send it to your son for college. Or donate it! There’s always something, and if you’re being honest, you know that as well as me.”

“Actually, thanks. I have an idea of something I need to do. I have it all planned out. I just need the day after tomorrow off.”

“It’s Thanksgiving! We expected you’d come over for a meal. Rex is a good cook—”

“Thank you. I’ll happily take leftovers. But I’ve decided that this year, my thanksgiving will be an act of service, and there’s something I really have to do.” With that, she bent over and gave Lady an all-over rib rub, with a rump scratch as the grand finale, and then, as a final blessing, she ran her fingers over the scar on Lady’s head.

CHAPTER 15

On Thanksgiving, right as the red sun crested Earth and soft light spread, Ammalie pulled up to the flapping-eyed Dart sitting alone in the landscape of snow that looked like a white and undulating sea. “Ahoy, matey,” she murmured, but her voice was serious and sad. Today would not be a playful one. Today could be the hardest day of her life—physically, at least, the birth of Powell being the only other one that might come close.

As she had expected, there was no sign of anyone, but when she lugged in two boxes of canned goods and left them on the counter with a note for whoever needs these—peace she saw that the money she’d left was gone. Kit had been here, presumably. Knowing that brought her some amount of peace, though she was still stomach-sick with worry. How had he survived the storm? When she knocked on the propane canister with her gloved hand, she had at least one answer: It echoed empty. He’d used up a full canister and probably just left. The snow had mostly melted yesterday on the dark rock path that led to Dart’s door, which is why no footprints were visible.

She locked the door as she left. She had to keep going, and fast, too. She had only so many hours of daylight and a big plan. And it was cold, though the sun was now warming the planet to a reasonable temperature. She drove away from Dart, down the rutted road that was no longer a road, and the path on which she had walked with the bloody head. She cut fence twice—illegal, she knew—and it conjured up the memory of cutting the fence off the tree back in Colorado. She drove until the road was too rough. The Grey Goose had been bucking like a bronc and could go no more.

Here, then, was her starting point. She stood for a moment, hands on hips, and took in the sprawling landscape, the Grey Goose ticking in the warming sun beside her. Such an enormous expanse of scrub brush and snow, and the snow was important—her footprints would leave a trail, which is what she’d need so as not to get lost. Even if it partially melted during the day, as it would, there would be enough tracks to guide her. This day would push her to her limits. Perhaps what she was doing was of very little use, maybe no use. She knew she was just one woman, a white woman with a limited understanding of the situation, a woman who was foolishly stepping into a situation without fully understanding it. She knew some people would judge her harshly for this, some would cheer her on, some would bring politics into it, and there were a million ways she could be criticized.

But here’s what she also knew:

She had brought Vincent water, and it had not helped.

Human beings were dying of thirst and cold out here, and water and a space blanket would help.

And regardless of its virtue or not, she needed to do it. For forgiveness. Or redemption. So she could get Vincent’s dying face out of her mind. So she could rewrite the story of this place, instead of just remembering her cut head and her fear. She simply needed to do it.

She’d worked it over and over in her mind. Yesterday afternoon, after much of the snow had been cleared or melted, she’d driven into town to the Ace Hardware, a pharmacy, and an Outdoor Adventures store, buying them out of all the necessary items and spending all the cash Rita had given her. She ticked things off her list, emptying a few shelves along the way.

10 plastic bins ($70)

30 gallons of water ($30)

All the cans of beans and soups with pull tops ($50)

All the space blankets that were available ($400)

All materials needed for first aid kits that were actually useful, including water purification tablets ($600)

The cashier had raised her eyebrow and sighed; Ammalie had basically emptied her out of ointments and bandages and related items. She’d spent much of last night making stupid store-bought first aid kits into actually useful ones. Now it was all organized perfectly in Grey Goose. Now was the hard part:

Ten trips.

Ten different directions.

A plastic tub in one hand. A gallon of water in her other hand. And on her back, in her large backpack, two gallons of water, three cans of food, a few space blankets, a first aid kit. It was incredibly heavy. But she’d prepared for that in her mind, which made doing it possible. She’d walk about one mile per drop—some drops would be quite close to the car, but some would be farther, for a total of ten or so miles for the day, which was likely the absolute max. Yes, others could do more but she could not, and so that was that. She was not an athlete, she was a regular person with a goal and one day.

Water is heavy. Very heavy. Each gallon of water weighed eight pounds, so three gallons came to twenty-four. Plus, she had her own half gallon per trip for herself. With the weight of the cans, and the minimal weight of her own necessities, the pack would weigh about twenty-six pounds for each trip. Not nothing. Indeed, her mind began to reconfigure the mileage; she’d probably overestimated what she could do. Well, she’d do what she could. She’d do this one thing, as well as she could.

Her car was the center of the clock; she’d start in three p.m. position and would end up in the nine position, thereby covering the 180 degrees of lands that rested between her and Mexico.

The first three trips were the longest but easiest. She was rested and energetic. Twice, she heard the distant sound of Border Patrol helicopters. She wished she’d brought Lady, who would have been comforting, but she’d have had to explain why and where she was going. When she found a good outcropping or edge of a trail, she left three gallons of water, cans of food, space blankets, and a first aid kit under the large storage bin, put a heavy rock on top, and then she walked back to the car and started again.

The fourth trip, she began to feel her left hip and knee. By the sixth trip, she was talking to herself, or, rather, to an imaginary critic, who warned her not to be presumptuous, not to have a white-woman-savior complex. That what she was doing was limited in scope and it should not be treated as more than it really was—a small drop in a vast bucket. Others were helping in much larger ways, putting more on the line. There were bigger things to be done, such as elect politicians who cared about international trade laws and water conservation and the well-being of those on Planet Earth.